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no_true_pairTitle: Reflections of Stars
Author/Artist:secretstaircase
Fandom: Jigoku Shoujo/Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Pairing/characters: Enma Ai/Kaname Madoka
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Prompt/challenge you're answering: Enma Ai & Kaname Madoka, gripped by nostalgia
Enma Ai feels it when the world changes. It’s as if a door opens in the heavens and a wind blows through from somewhere else. Ai is sitting on the pier, watching the water move where nobody has touched it, and she knows at once that the world is different, and that she’s no longer alone.
The girl’s pink dress looks garish in the sunset light, but although that red glow can make anything look bloody, somehow the girl’s white frills only appear more pristine. She walks across the water, her feet making ripples. Ai doesn’t have to ask her name.
“Kaname Madoka.”
“Enma Ai.” The girl looks serious for a few moments, then smiles. “Can I talk to you?”
Ai takes refuge in silence. There are fields and fields of higanbana, and a patch of earth beneath a tree where contracts are formed, but she doesn’t think Kaname Madoka will want to talk in those places, or inside the house, where grandmother spins out crimson thread. She won’t want to talk where the three-eyed spider can hear.
But Madoka surprises her, sitting down on the wooden boards with her greenwood bow across her knees. “I guess going out feels like going to work for you, right? Since this is your home, you probably want to talk here. And we shouldn’t bother your friend, you know, the chariot man.” She swings her legs back and forth like a little girl, holds her feet up to admire her red shoes, goes back to swinging again.
“This isn’t your place,” Ai says. “I’m not one of your charges.”
“But you could be, you know,” Madoka says. “Even if you’re not a Puella Magi, you’re kind of like one. I guess in a way you give hope to people.” She wrinkles her nose slightly, as if describing Ai’s work that way is distasteful to her. “But mostly, there was that time when you could have stopped being Hell Girl; you would have been free, but you decided to come back and make things right again. Wasn’t it because you cared about that girl?”
“Are you talking about Mikage Yuzuki?”
Madoka nods. “You chose to carry on for her sake, to protect her. The way you did that, it reminded me of somebody.” She smiles, looking up at the sky, a wistful look. “You’ve lived like this for a really long time, I know. You probably think nothing can change, after so long, but it can.”
Behind them, the spider slips down from the eaves on a line of web. Ai is silent. Madoka keeps smiling, but something flashes in her eyes, and her hand tightens around her bow.
“I just want you to know that I’d fight for you too. You only have to ask.”
Ai is silent, but she’s watching Madoka’s reflection in the water. Madoka’s hopeful face is turned up as if she’s waiting for the first star to appear in that wash of changeless red, and to Ai she just looks young, so very young.
“But you were young too,” Madoka says. “Remember?”
Ai is silent, but all at once she does remember, and remembrance is like an arrow piercing her, reopening some old wound. She remembers what it was like to trust someone, what it was like to know he would protect her and fight for her. She remembers how on the hard days, days when she was cold or hungry or lonely, hidden in that tiny little shrine, she had Sentarou’s visits to hope for, and how that made everything bearable. She remembers how safe she felt, just knowing he was in the village thinking about her too.
All these memories are still close to the surface, just like the shell of the burned Shibata shrine is still visible sometimes when the vines die back in winter, but she hasn’t been back there, and as for the memories, she hasn’t allowed herself to look at them again until now. It’s as if Madoka has raised a mirror for her to see the things she keeps trying to turn her back on.
“Where’s the hope in eternity?” she says to herself. The water reflects the sky’s fire back at her, as if the whole world is burning. Forever makes her tired.
“Vengeance makes you tired,” Madoka argues. “Giving out despair makes you tired.” Drowning beneath the surface of the water, Ai sees a thousand thousand candles with names on them, all burning lower. “But as long as you can hope, you can carry on.”
Hope is a lie; hope gets you a hole in the ground and a spadeful of earth thrown down on you by the person you trusted.
“No,” Madoka says. “If that’s true, why did you sacrifice yourself for Yuzuki and Takuma? When anyone does something selfless, it’s because they know there’s hope in the world, even when it looks impossible. Don’t you believe that?”
On the water, Ai sees herself kissing Yuzuki, a river of blue flowers. Hope is an ache in her chest.
Madoka is untying a pink ribbon from around her throat, retying it around Ai’s left wrist, the one where there’s no bell. “You’re entering into a contract with me,” she says. “When you untie this ribbon, I’ll come for you.”
The three-eyed spider is watching, and she can feel the menace glaring from him, but Madoka’s gloved fingers are as soft as light against the tender skin inside wrist. Ai sees their reflections leaning together, like flowers bending, and feels the kiss on her cheek. For a moment, she thinks she could close her eyes.
Before the spider can reach them, Madoka is on her feet, her bow drawn, and an arrow flies; Ai doesn’t see where it goes. Madoka jumps down through the water’s unbroken surface and flies into the reflected sky, until she's no more than a point of light.
Ai feels the spider’s fury, and knows there will be retribution, but for the moment she doesn’t think of that. The world has changed. She lifts her eyes from the pool to the sky, and sees that above, the first star has come out.
Author/Artist:
secretstaircaseFandom: Jigoku Shoujo/Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Pairing/characters: Enma Ai/Kaname Madoka
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Prompt/challenge you're answering: Enma Ai & Kaname Madoka, gripped by nostalgia
Enma Ai feels it when the world changes. It’s as if a door opens in the heavens and a wind blows through from somewhere else. Ai is sitting on the pier, watching the water move where nobody has touched it, and she knows at once that the world is different, and that she’s no longer alone.
The girl’s pink dress looks garish in the sunset light, but although that red glow can make anything look bloody, somehow the girl’s white frills only appear more pristine. She walks across the water, her feet making ripples. Ai doesn’t have to ask her name.
“Kaname Madoka.”
“Enma Ai.” The girl looks serious for a few moments, then smiles. “Can I talk to you?”
Ai takes refuge in silence. There are fields and fields of higanbana, and a patch of earth beneath a tree where contracts are formed, but she doesn’t think Kaname Madoka will want to talk in those places, or inside the house, where grandmother spins out crimson thread. She won’t want to talk where the three-eyed spider can hear.
But Madoka surprises her, sitting down on the wooden boards with her greenwood bow across her knees. “I guess going out feels like going to work for you, right? Since this is your home, you probably want to talk here. And we shouldn’t bother your friend, you know, the chariot man.” She swings her legs back and forth like a little girl, holds her feet up to admire her red shoes, goes back to swinging again.
“This isn’t your place,” Ai says. “I’m not one of your charges.”
“But you could be, you know,” Madoka says. “Even if you’re not a Puella Magi, you’re kind of like one. I guess in a way you give hope to people.” She wrinkles her nose slightly, as if describing Ai’s work that way is distasteful to her. “But mostly, there was that time when you could have stopped being Hell Girl; you would have been free, but you decided to come back and make things right again. Wasn’t it because you cared about that girl?”
“Are you talking about Mikage Yuzuki?”
Madoka nods. “You chose to carry on for her sake, to protect her. The way you did that, it reminded me of somebody.” She smiles, looking up at the sky, a wistful look. “You’ve lived like this for a really long time, I know. You probably think nothing can change, after so long, but it can.”
Behind them, the spider slips down from the eaves on a line of web. Ai is silent. Madoka keeps smiling, but something flashes in her eyes, and her hand tightens around her bow.
“I just want you to know that I’d fight for you too. You only have to ask.”
Ai is silent, but she’s watching Madoka’s reflection in the water. Madoka’s hopeful face is turned up as if she’s waiting for the first star to appear in that wash of changeless red, and to Ai she just looks young, so very young.
“But you were young too,” Madoka says. “Remember?”
Ai is silent, but all at once she does remember, and remembrance is like an arrow piercing her, reopening some old wound. She remembers what it was like to trust someone, what it was like to know he would protect her and fight for her. She remembers how on the hard days, days when she was cold or hungry or lonely, hidden in that tiny little shrine, she had Sentarou’s visits to hope for, and how that made everything bearable. She remembers how safe she felt, just knowing he was in the village thinking about her too.
All these memories are still close to the surface, just like the shell of the burned Shibata shrine is still visible sometimes when the vines die back in winter, but she hasn’t been back there, and as for the memories, she hasn’t allowed herself to look at them again until now. It’s as if Madoka has raised a mirror for her to see the things she keeps trying to turn her back on.
“Where’s the hope in eternity?” she says to herself. The water reflects the sky’s fire back at her, as if the whole world is burning. Forever makes her tired.
“Vengeance makes you tired,” Madoka argues. “Giving out despair makes you tired.” Drowning beneath the surface of the water, Ai sees a thousand thousand candles with names on them, all burning lower. “But as long as you can hope, you can carry on.”
Hope is a lie; hope gets you a hole in the ground and a spadeful of earth thrown down on you by the person you trusted.
“No,” Madoka says. “If that’s true, why did you sacrifice yourself for Yuzuki and Takuma? When anyone does something selfless, it’s because they know there’s hope in the world, even when it looks impossible. Don’t you believe that?”
On the water, Ai sees herself kissing Yuzuki, a river of blue flowers. Hope is an ache in her chest.
Madoka is untying a pink ribbon from around her throat, retying it around Ai’s left wrist, the one where there’s no bell. “You’re entering into a contract with me,” she says. “When you untie this ribbon, I’ll come for you.”
The three-eyed spider is watching, and she can feel the menace glaring from him, but Madoka’s gloved fingers are as soft as light against the tender skin inside wrist. Ai sees their reflections leaning together, like flowers bending, and feels the kiss on her cheek. For a moment, she thinks she could close her eyes.
Before the spider can reach them, Madoka is on her feet, her bow drawn, and an arrow flies; Ai doesn’t see where it goes. Madoka jumps down through the water’s unbroken surface and flies into the reflected sky, until she's no more than a point of light.
Ai feels the spider’s fury, and knows there will be retribution, but for the moment she doesn’t think of that. The world has changed. She lifts her eyes from the pool to the sky, and sees that above, the first star has come out.